Etymology
1. c.1550, "to strike hard with a loud blow," from O.N.
banga "to pound, hammer" of echoic origin. Slang meaning "have sexual intercourse with" first recorded 1937.
Bangs of hair first recorded 1878, Amer.Eng., though 1870 of horses (
bang-tail), perhaps from notion of abruptness (cf.
bang off "immediately, without delay, 1886;
bang-up "excellent, first-rate," 1820, probably shortened from phrase
bang up to the mark).
Big bang in astrophysics first recorded 1950.
Banger British slang for "a sausage" is first recorded 1919, perhaps from sense of "a bludgeon," though this is only recorded in U.S.
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper"
[T.S. Eliot, "Hollow Men," 1925]
2. From Middle English *bangen, from Old English *bangian or borrowed from Old Norse banga (“to pound, hammer”); both from Proto-Germanic *bangōną (“to beat, pound”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰen- (“to beat, hit, injure”). Cognate with Scots bang, bung (“to strike, bang, hurl, thrash, offend”), Icelandic banga (“to pound, hammer”), Old Swedish bånga ("to hammer"; whence modern Swedish banka (“to knock, pound, bang”)), Danish banke (“to beat”), bengel (“club”), Low German bangen, bangeln (“to strike, beat”), West Frisian bingel, bongel, Dutch bengel (“bell; rascal”), German Bengel (“club”), bungen (“to throb, pulsate”).
3. In the sense of a fringe of hair, from bang off.
4. In the sense of abrupt left turn, from Boston left and associated risk of a crash. See: Proto-Germanic '
*bangōną', Icelandic '
banga', Swedish '
banka', Danish '
banke', Low Saxon 'bangen'.
Verbs referencing "bang"
Bislama bang, Classical Armenian
բախեմ.